The hum vanished underfoot, quiet as breath, and the silence that followed felt too complete to be natural.
Jace remained crouched, his grip tightened around MARA's grip. The quiet closed in around him. No birds, no wind—just his own pulse, too loud in the empty air.
He took one slow breath, then another. Ground yourself. Get control. His mind slid back into the practiced calm of someone trained to survive chaos, not understand it.
Then—A whisper of vibration brushed the underside of his boot.
Not loud. Not sharp. Just enough to tighten every muscle in his back.
The ground was doing it again.
He stayed perfectly still, counting each second. The tremor came a second time, this one felt deeper, rather than a simple hum. Then it faded again, like something probing from beneath the surface… searching.
A rustle broke the stillness ahead.
Jace eased his rifle toward the rustling, his movement precise and quiet, while settling into a low profile behind a thick root. Through the brush, something moved with careful steps. A creature stepped between the trees—small, gray-skinned, delicate, with long limbs and eyes that reflected the canopy like polished stone.
It stopped dead. Eyes not on him, but on the ground
A tremor rolled under their feet.
The animal didn't breathe. Didn't blink.
A few seconds passed and the next hum rolled beneath them—closer this time, sharper. The creature jerked as if struck. Its legs stiffened, eyes wide with instinctive terror.
Then it bolted, leaping sideways in blind terror, sprinting through the underbrush with frantic, silent speed. As it did, the ground behind it heaved, shoving up soil and moss in a violent swell. Giving the creature no time to react, the ground buckled, as something ripped the creature underground in a heartbeat—ending in a muffled, bone-deep crunch as the ground flattened again as if nothing had happened.
Jace went still, his breath caught halfway in his throat. Whatever did that… it hadn't been after him. Not yet at least, but one wrong move would change that fast.
He eased backward, boot by boot, trying not to shift the moss too much. The soil twitched once beneath him—subtle, warning.
It hunts by vibration.
He needed distance. Cover. Hard ground—terrain that wouldn't carry the tremors. His eyes swept the area with sharp precision. Southwest of him, he caught a glint of movement between the trees—a narrow creek cutting across the forest floor, water flowing over stone. The banks were hard gravel, the ground firm and unblinking beneath it. The lack of soft earth meant nothing to transmit vibration. That was his exit.
He needed bait—something to pull the creature's attention away from his route to the creek.
He reached slowly for his vest, fingers hovering over his empty mag pouch. One of the spares wasn't fully loaded; the weight was noticeably lighter. Good. Perfect tool.
He slid out the empty magazine with slow, controlled movement.
He had one chance.
Jace took a deep breath.
Then he threw the magazine—not far, maybe twenty yards—sidearm and low, so it wouldn't whistle. It struck a thick tree root with a sharp, metallic crack.
The forest reacted first.
The ground shuddered—once, like a breath held too long finally exhaled.
Then everything moved at once.
A violent ripple surged beneath the moss, racing toward the sound with terrifying speed. Soil lifted. Roots bowed. The earth itself seemed to buck as whatever lurked below redirected its entire mass toward the distraction.
Jace didn't wait to watch it arrive.
He moved.
Low. Controlled. Fast.
Each step a silent glide through the underbrush, angled toward the creek. He kept his weight spread, avoiding sudden force, avoiding vertical pressure—anything that would send clean vibration into the dirt.
Behind him, the earth erupted.
A sharp, crushing thud cut through the air, followed by a wet snapping sound swallowed almost instantly by the ground closing back in. The magazine was gone—pulled under like the creature before it.
Jace didn't let himself look back.
The creek came into sight through the trees—water whispering over stone, cold and steady, the perfect noise cover.
He quickened his pace, breath measured, body remembering every lesson carved into him through training and war.
Another tremor rolled beneath the forest floor.
Closer this time.
Following.
But not toward him.
Not yet.
Just a few more yards.
Just reach the creek.
Hard ground. Noise concealment. Movement break.
He slid the last stretch on one knee, palm bracing against a root as he dropped into the shallow bank. The cold water splashed up against his boots, the rush of it drowning the frantic beat of his pulse.
For the first time since waking in this nightmare forest, something like hope flickered through him.
He was off the living floor.
Safe ground—
Another tremor hit.
Stronger.
He froze.
The creature had changed direction.
It wasn't chasing the noise anymore.
It was hunting him.
A tremor rolled through the forest floor—duller now, blunted by the creek—but heavy enough that Jace felt it through the stones under his boots. Not a strike. A sweep. The creature was searching, feeling its way back toward the movement it had lost.
He dropped lower into the creek, boots sinking into the cold water. The rush of it swallowed the sound of his breath, his heartbeat, the quiet clatter of gear. Noise cover. Good. But not enough to let him relax.
Another muted shudder passed through the bank, wrinkling the moss like something underneath was testing the boundary.
Then the earth heaved.
A mound of soil swelled upward along the creek's edge, lifting roots and stones in a slow, brutal surge. Too deliberate to be natural. Too controlled to be a collapse.
It angled directly toward him.
Jace held still.
Perfectly still.
The mound stopped at the waterline—like a predator halted by invisible fencing—and pulsed once, a probing push that sent a shiver through the moss.
The creature was feeling for him. Not with eyes. Not with scent. Rather with vibration.
It couldn't sense him here. But it refused to leave.
The mound slowly shifted left, dragging the soil with it. Then right. Before stilling, hovering at the edge of the water like something listening for him through the earth.
Jace raised his rifle a fraction, keeping his movements minimal. A useless gesture. He couldn't kill this thing. Not like this. But the habit grounded him.
The mound quivered—once—then began to sink.
Not withdrawing. Submerging.
The soil settled. The fissure closed. The forest surface smoothed as if nothing had risen there at all.
But Jace didn't breathe.
Not yet.
Beneath the ground, something heavy scraped along deeper stone—a grinding, predatory shift circling downstream.
It was still hunting.
Just not him.
Not unless he gave it a reason.
He angled along the creek, each step slow and gliding, weight spread to reduce force transfer. The current masked the disruption of his boots, the stones beneath deadening any stray vibration.
He moved one yard. Then another.
A faint tremor answered from the bank—farther away now, sweeping in the wrong direction.
Good.
Another step.
The creek's cold flow crept higher against his shins, eating the warmth from his legs, but he forced himself to stay steady.
The stones beneath his boots were firm, unmoving—blessedly dead to vibration.
Behind him, another tremor swept along the bank.Not sharp. Broad. Searching.
That thing must had lost him.But it wasn't giving up.
Jace angled downstream, still keeping low, letting the water mask the sound of his movement. Each step was a controlled glide, weight distributed to avoid any sudden pressure. The creek curved gently through the forest, flanked by high roots and slanted stone—quiet, natural walls that muffled whatever lived beneath the soil.
Every few seconds a muted shudder rippled the ground somewhere off to his right, drifting farther each time. The creature was sweeping the terrain like a blind titan, feeling for the footfall it no longer had.
Good.Let it hunt ghosts.
Jace pushed farther downstream until the cold had numbed his legs to the knee, until his breaths came measured and silent, until the forest no longer trembled at his presence.
Only then did he allow himself to pause.
He stayed in the water while he scanned the trees for movement, for shifting shadows, for the unnatural pulse that haunted the moss. Nothing. Not even birds. The forest was holding its breath again, but this time the weight of attention had shifted off him.
Finally.
He inched toward a shallow bank where the stones rose into a flat shelf of hardened earth. Now that around an hour has passed now since the tremors had stopped entirely.
He dragged himself fully out of the water, boots dripping, legs stiff with cold, MARA tight against his chest, and watched the forest ahead in silence.
Jace let out a slow, steady breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. His muscles ached. His heart still hammered from adrenaline. But he was alive.
But the forest didn't feel any safer for it. As somewhere beneath that stillness, he knew that... thing was listening for him still. He needed to move—quietly and fast—before it found his trail again.